


Knelt in the Shadows

by autoschediastic



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:02:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autoschediastic/pseuds/autoschediastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rogers says, “Bucky,” in the exact same tone as every time before. As if that's some sort of answer in and of itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knelt in the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Ponderosa for oodles of support and encouragement and editing, and River for being a second and/or third set of eyes!

His failed mission sleeps soundly in a wide bed five and a quarter feet from the open window. On the far side of the room, half-hidden in the long shadows cast by the city lights, the shield sits against a nightstand piled high with dog-eared sketchbooks and an empty water glass. With little noise from the streets below as cover, he eases carefully inside, a close eye on Rogers as he circles the foot of the bed to come up on the other side.

There he stops. There's no point in blocking Rogers's escape through the apartment. Just as he’d crouched three rooftops away with a clear shot for half an evening and didn't take it, Rogers won't run.

A closer look in the muted light shows the wounds from the crash healed to faint scars. Based on the file they’d given him on Rogers, he knows they'll fade soon to nothing. His mouth twists as he thinks of his wounds, clumsily treated by his own shaking hand with the stench of burnt metal searing his throat. Another step brings him less than a foot away from the bed, and still Rogers sleeps.

People and places are strange outside a scope's perspective. Not bigger, or smaller, not even more real. Only odd somehow. Like the name Rogers called him rattling inside his head.

_Bucky_ , he thinks, testing it out the same as he tested each new arm given to him. Those memories are solid even where everything else surrounding them is nothing but the greyed blur of a ruined photograph. From the agony of the first grafting of metal to raw bone to each success and every failure, he remembers. Like computers, cell phones, the steady progression of more efficient ways to kill, the knowledge was useful. Over and over when his flesh thawed enough for him to wake, when the electric burn of each new mission briefing had finally faded, those things he knew.

Was Rogers's awakening as peaceful as his long sleep beneath the ice? Or did the weight of this new age crush the breath from his lungs, not allowing him even the luxury to scream?

His screams were never silenced. Screams meant pain, pain meant progress. That was always his purpose.

“I meant to kill you,” he tells Rogers, but there’s no scream, and he finds little satisfaction in the sharp intake of air half a heartbeat before Rogers's eyes fly open. “Why can't I kill you?”

Rogers says, “Bucky,” in the exact same tone as every time before. As if that's some sort of answer in and of itself.

Heat beings to fill the hollow ache in his chest. Rage, pure and molten. “I don't know you,” he grinds out through the clench of his teeth. Except this time in the chair, things had gone wrong. The procedure had been… incomplete. He told them he remembered. He _told_ them. But all they ever took away was in his mind, not his body.

Why didn't he tell them that?

“Ease up,” Rogers says, sitting up slowly to reach for the lamp. “Bucky, breathe. You're starting to sound like I used to.”

Soft light fills the room. The wall is solid against his back. Rogers only has one foot on the floor when he attacks.

But his arm is only functional, and his chest is tight, his lungs aflame. He stumbles as his aim goes wide and he crashes bodily into Rogers. They grapple awkwardly, Rogers because he refuses to fight and himself because the damaged sensors in his forearm have sparked a new ache deep in his shoulder. He hastily flexes his fingers to force a recalibration but the pain only spikes when he lashes out again. He does it again anyway, and again, craving the sharp relief of the other side of a trip to the chair.

Rogers catches his ankle with a foot and he spins, hits the wall chest-first hard enough to knock one of the sounds trapped in his chest free. Pressed tight to his back, Rogers says, “Bucky, _stop_.”

_“Gonna knock me right off this thing,” Steve says, his laughter wheezy and contagious. Bucky huffs and settles against the rickety crates as best he can with his pulse pounding in his skull. The solid brick wall of the alleyway against his shoulder seeps cool through his shirtsleeve. “This was your idea.”_

_“Brilliant idea,” Bucky insists, jumping when the cold metal of Steve's belt buckle grazes his bare ass. His trousers, stained with a full day's work at the docks and the beer he spent a third of his earnings on, pull tight across his thighs. The tails of Steve's cheap-spun shirt are rough against his skin. “Works, don't it?”_

_Low and heated, Steve says, “Yeah. Yeah, it works, Buck,” as his hips shift, his cock slipping into the crack of Bucky's ass. The crate Steve's standing on gives a low creak. “Just stay still and lemme do this.”_

_Might be a thing or two more Bucky could say but Steve's got the angle now and he pushes in, slow and not as easy as he could. A groan catches in Bucky's throat, swallowed back down on the next breath; Steve'll back off too soon if he gets noisy out here. The ache of his body breached spreads out from his gut up into his chest, steals the air from his lungs and makes his legs shake. Bit by bit muscle grudgingly gives way until Steve's bony hips sit flush to his ass. His cock hangs heavy and full between his legs, a fresh rush of slick wetness forced from the slit to add another stain to his trousers._

_“Jesus,” Steve grates, sounding as raw and open as Bucky feels. Slender fingers so deft at sketching all the delicate, beautiful things left in the world dig like iron into Bucky's sides. “You'd think I'd get used to it.” He wheezes another laugh, his forehead on Bucky's shoulder as he draws back only a little, pushes in again, watching Bucky take him._

Bucky's on fire. He claws deep, ragged gouges in the wall as he tries to wrench away, snarling and spitting lank hair out of his mouth when he loses the half-foot of freedom he'd gained. Phantom aches low in his body war with the sharp pain in his shoulder, twisting up his insides so tight a noise he doesn't recognise comes spilling out of him.

It's enough to loosen Steve's grip.

“I don't want to hurt you,” Steve says, with the same plea in his voice from the bridge but far more determination. “You're not going to make me hurt you. Not this time.”

Bucky says, “Fine,” and slams his elbow into Steve's face.

Every strike following is aimed at Steve's face; not enough connect. He rages through the apartment, barely registering shattering glass and splintering wood except for which is close enough to use as a weapon. Steve gives ground in circles, equally oblivious to collateral damage and using every opening to plead instead, reach with an outstretched hand where he should offer a fist.

And over and over, _Bucky_ , with an intimate desperation that shouldn't be so familiar.

Bucky shakes himself like a dog trying to shed the name, the memories, but they dig in him like barbed hooks, wedging into flesh to scrape bone, tear free more snatches full of ash and death and bloodstained snow. The crunch of bone from _then_ overlays with the sound of it _now_ , fresh blood hot and sticky on his knuckles. He's broken two fingers and Steve's nose. Steve's eye is close to swollen shut again and just like before, solid hit after hit, he refuses to look away. The next punch is meant to blind.

With not enough time to block, Steve gives more ground than he should. He goes down hard and scrambles up again just as quickly, bloodied but ready. Bucky freezes mid-swing as Steve's face thins out and he shrinks in on himself, hunched shoulders and skinny legs and trembling arms.

“You know me, Buck,” he says. _“I just don't quit.”_

With more anger than conviction, Bucky snarls, “That's not my name.”

“Yeah?” Steve--strong and tall again--wipes at the blood smeared under his nose. “Then what is?”

_Bring in the asset. Make sure the weapon's prepped. Let the assassin take care of it. The soldier is ready._

There's no use for a soldier that doesn't follow orders, a weapon that won't--can't--fire. Steve took those names from him.

He lashes out again, harder, faster, throwing his whole body at his target the way it was drilled into him. Save nothing for the return; the mission is the only objective. He doesn't matter.

Steve fights him like he matters.

He doesn't know how he ends up flat on his back on the floor. Breathing hard through the hot sick burn at the back of his throat, he tries to stand. His legs refuse. Even his arm, cold metal far more reliable than flesh, fails him. The chill that sears his veins he recognizes as fear.

He _remembers_ it.

Steve rolls on top of him, using body weight to still the last of his struggles, and brushes hair out of his face with a bloodied hand. He sucks air like his body betraying him is a simple matter of oxygen and wastes it in snarling, “Don't touch me,” as he tosses his head, knocking too-gentle fingers off his face.

“I said it, I meant it.” Steve doesn't touch him again. “Didn't give up on you then, I'm not gonna give up on you now.”

He tries to find the leverage to kick free and fails. He chokes back a noise that tastes like burned circuits and silt-dark water. Like icy mountain wind. Like bodies rotted from the inside out and piss-rusted metal and the bitter sting of bile churned up from the cramp of his empty guts.

Fists clenched, he rasps, “James-- Sergeant. James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant James Buchanan--”

“Don't,” Steve says. “You don't need to do that.”

“--Barnes. 107th. Sergeant--”

“Stop it and look at me!”

He grits his eyes tighter against the screams of the men strapped to the other tables. “--James--”

Hands touch his face. He shies away, words strangled as his throat closes. Straps are tight across his chest, his arms and legs, even his head; the needles are next. Then the electricity. The sour-sweet stink of his own cooked flesh.

“Not again,” someone echoes him. “Not this time, not ever again. You hear me, Bucky? Not ever again.”

Opening his eyes seems impossible. Impossible like Steve being in a place like this. Steve's back in a Brooklyn alley getting his rear end handed to him and nobody's there to save him from himself. “Steve?”

Steve lets out a loud breath. “Yeah. Yeah, it's me. I got you, okay?”

Bucky squints into the dark. He knew it. Steve's all banged up again, a real shiner and a split lip. “Aw, Steve,” he says, and turns Steve's face toward the sliver of light from the open window. Could be Bucky's imagination, but his nose looks a little crooked too. “You gotta quit picking fights with assholes.”

Almost choking on a ragged laugh, Steve drops his head. “I sure do. Can't seem to help myself.”

Dusty bits of plaster rain down on Bucky's chest as he gives Steve's hair a quick ruffle. It's shorter than usual, and his jaw's nice and smooth from a fresh shave. “You all spiffed up for a date?”

“Nah.” Steve smiles the half-hearted one he always plasters on when Bucky starts talking about girls. He draws a slow breath and says, “Better clean up, I guess,” like he's not so sure he should.

“Good thing you clean up nice, fella.”

Steve doesn't move, his smile turning brittle at the edges. He draws another breath and lets it out even slower than the last. “Bucky--”

Cocking an eyebrow, Bucky grins and waits. Been a long while since Steve's played shy about this sort of thing. Feels even longer still since the last time. Winter came with a sharp bite that year, nipping through the chinks in the window frames they'd stuffed full of rags. Some nights the curtains snapped with the howling wind, felt like the whole place swayed flimsy as a tent--

A whimper claws its way out of Bucky's throat.

“I won't stop you,” Steve says, still bloodied but bigger, heavier, just as determined. “Hit me again if you want, or get up and leave. Up to you.”

Though Steve's nowhere near as heavy as a cracked metal strut, Bucky's pinned all the same. “Get off me.”

Steve rolls off without a word, putting a stupidly small sliver of distance between them. He slumps against the wall, hands loose in his lap, legs a careless sprawl. Another image of the smaller Steve tries to impose itself over this one and Bucky stumbles to his feet, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes, flesh and metal equally brutal. The things inside his head are disjointed and wrong, too many lives heaped one on top the other like jagged glass shards. He grits his teeth against the pain of memories he shouldn't have, hands curling to fists, knuckles cracking against his forehead with the pressure.

From too close by, Steve says, “Don't hurt yourself, Buck,” and Bucky hears it layered over itself in so many ways all at once: frustration, sorrow, affection, love. Emotions he's known but hasn't _known_. There had never been a need.

Without looking back, Bucky makes for the window. At the sill, Steve's sure and steady, “You know where to find me,” gives him pause.

“I do,” he replies, the words no longer a threat on a lips.

And find Steve he does, night after night from his perch on a rooftop far back from the warm yellow glow of Steve's window. Knelt in the shadows, waiting for the memories to come.


End file.
